Abstract
Online dating systems are used by millions of people around the world to pursue love, sex, friendship, and other goals. Several product features of online dating systems contribute to a seemingly enjoyable and rewarding user experience. For example, the “swiping” mechanism commonly found in many of today’s mobile dating apps has been likened to a game (Purvis in Why using Tinder is so satisfying. The Washington Post, 2017). Users swipe right to “like” profiles that they find attractive, and swipe left to reject the others. Receiving a match in these apps (i.e. discovering that an attractive user reciprocated a “like”) can be an exciting and addictive experience, not unlike winning a trivial amount of cash on a casino’s slot machine. Let’s pull the lever just one more time, let’s view just one more profile.
Access this chapter
Tax calculation will be finalised at checkout
Purchases are for personal use only
References
Blackwell C, Birnholtz J, Abbott C (2014) Seeing and being seen: co-situation and impression formation using Grindr, a location-aware gay dating app. New Media Soc 1–20. http://doi.org/10.1177/1461444814521595
Blythe M, Hassenzahl M (2005) The semantics of fun: differentiating enjoyable experiences. In: Funology, Springer, pp 91–100
Cacioppo JT, Cacioppo S, Gonzaga GC, Ogburn EL, Vanderweele TJ (2013) Marital satisfaction and break-ups differ across on-line and off-line meeting venues. Proc Natl Acad Sci 110(25):10135–10140. https://doi.org/10.1073/pnas.1222447110
Chiou W, Yang M (2010) The moderating role of need for cognition on excessive searching bias: a case of finding romantic partners online. Ann Rev Cyberther Telemed 120–122
Clemens C, Atkin D, Krishnan A (2015) The influence of biological and personality traits on gratifications obtained through online dating websites. Comput Hum Behav 49(August):120–129. https://doi.org/10.1016/j.chb.2014.12.058
Couch D, Liamputtong P (2008) Online dating and mating: the use of the internet to meet sexual partners. Qual Health Res 18(2):268–279. http://doi.org/18/2/268 [pii]; https://doi.org/10.1177/1049732307312832
Crawford M, Popp D (2003) Sexual double standards: a review and methodological critique of two decades of research. J Sex Res 40(1):13–26
D’Angelo JD, Toma CL (2016) There are plenty of fish in the sea: the effects of choice overload and reversibility on online daters’ satisfaction with selected partners. Media Psychol 3269(May):1–27. https://doi.org/10.1080/15213269.2015.1121827
Eastwick PW, Finkel EJ (2008) Sex differences in mate preferences revisited: do people know what they initially desire in a romantic partner? J Pers Soc Psychol 94(2):245–264. https://doi.org/10.1037/0022-3514.94.2.245
Ellison N, Heino R, Gibbs JL (2006) Managing impressions online: self-presentation processes in the online dating environment. J Comput Mediated Commun 11:415–441. https://doi.org/10.1111/j.1083-6101.2006.00020.x
Ellison NB, Hancock JT, Toma CL (2012) Profile as promise: a framework for conceptualizing veracity in online dating self-presentations. New Media Soc 14(1):45–62. https://doi.org/10.1177/1461444811410395
Finkel EJ, Eastwick PW, Karney BR, Reis HT, Sprecher S (2012) Online dating: a critical analysis from the perspective of psychological science. psychological science in the public interest, vol. 13. http://doi.org/10.1177/1529100612436522
Fiore AT, Taylor LS, Zhong X, Mendelsohn GA, Cheshire C (2010) Who’s right and who writes: People, profiles, contacts, and replies in online dating. In: Proceedings of the annual Hawaii international conference on system sciences, IEEE, pp 1–10. http://doi.org/10.1109/HICSS.2010.444
Frost JH, Chance Z, Norton MI, Ariely D (2008) People are experience goods: improving online dating with virtual dates. J Interact Mark 22(1):51–61
Gagne FM, Lydon JE (2001) Mind-set and close relationships: when bias leads to (In) accurate predictions. J Pers Soc Psychol 81(1):85
Gatter K, Hodkinson K, Kolle M (2016) On the differences between TinderTM versus online dating agencies: questioning a myth. An exploratory study. Cogent Psychol 3(1):1162414. https://doi.org/10.1080/23311908.2016.1162414
Gibbs JL, Ellison NB, Heino RD (2006) Self-presentation in online personals: the role of anticipated future interaction, self-disclosure, and perceived success in internet dating. Commun Res 33(2):152–177. https://doi.org/10.1177/0093650205285368
Goffman E (1978) The presentation of self in everyday life. Harmondsworth
González-Vallejo C, Moran E (2001) The evaluability hypothesis revisited: Joint and separate evaluation preference reversal as a function of attribute importance. Organ Behav Hum Decis Process 86(2):216–233
Hall JA, Park N, Song H, Cody MJ (2010) Strategic misrepresentation in online dating: the effects of gender, self-monitoring, and personality traits. J Soc Pers Relat 27(1):117–135. https://doi.org/10.1177/0265407509349633
Hancock JT, Toma CL (2009) Putting your best face forward: the accuracy of online dating photographs. J Commun 59(2):367–386. https://doi.org/10.1111/j.1460-2466.2009.01420.x
Hancock JT, Toma C, Ellison N (2007) The truth about lying in online dating profiles. In: CHI Proceedings, pp 449–452. http://doi.org/10.1145/1240624.1240697
Hardy J, Lindtner S (2017) Constructing a desiring user: discourse, rurality, and design in location-based social networks. In: Proceedings of the ACM conference on computer-supported cooperative work & social computing—CSCW’17. http://doi.org/10.1145/2998181.2998347
Heino RD, Ellison NB, Gibbs JL (2010) Relationshopping: investigating the market metaphor in online dating. J Soc Pers Relat 27(4):427–447. https://doi.org/10.1177/0265407510361614
Hsiao JC-Y, Dillahunt TR (2017) People-nearby applications. In: Proceedings of the 2017 ACM conference on computer supported cooperative work and social computing—CSCW’17, February, pp 26–40. http://doi.org/10.1145/2998181.2998280
Iyengar S (2010) The art of choosing. Twelve
Katz E, Haas H, Gurevitch M (1973) On the use of the mass media for important things. Am Sociol Rev 164–181
Kruglanski AW, Thompson EP, Higgins ET, Atash MN, Pierro A, Shah JY, Spiegel S (2000) To “do the right thing” or to “just do it”: locomotion and assessment as distinct self-regulatory imperatives. J Pers Soc Psychol 79(5):793–815. https://doi.org/10.1037/0022-3514.79.5.793
Kumashiro M, Rusbult CE, Finkenauer C, Stocker SL (2007) To think or to do: the impact of assessment and locomotion orientation on the Michelangelo phenomenon. J Soc Pers Relat 24(4):591–611
Leary MR, Kowalski RM (1990) Impression management: a literature review and two-component model. Psychol Bull 107(1):34–47. http://doi.org/10.1037/0033-2909.107.1.34
Lenton AP, Stewart A (2008) Changing her ways: the number of options and mate-standard strength impact mate choice strategy and satisfaction. Judgm Decis Mak 3(7):501–511. Retrieved from http://citeseerx.ist.psu.edu/viewdoc/download?doi=10.1.1.419.9483&rep=rep1&type=pdf
Lenton AP, Fasolo B, Todd PM (2009) The relationship between number of potential mates and mating skew in humans. Anim Behav 77(1):55–60. https://doi.org/10.1016/j.anbehav.2008.08.025
Masden C, Edwards WK (2015) Understanding the role of community in online dating. In: CHI Proceedings, pp 535–544. http://doi.org/10.1145/2702123.2702417
Purvis J (2017, February 14). Why using Tinder is so satisfying. The Washington Post
Smith A, Anderson M (2015) 5 facts about online dating. Pew Research Center. Retrieved from http://www.pewresearch.org/fact-tank/2016/02/29/5-facts-about-online-dating/
Sumter SR, Vandenbosch L, Ligtenberg L (2017) Love me Tinder: untangling emerging adults’ motivations for using the dating application Tinder. Telematics Inform 34(1):67–78. https://doi.org/10.1016/j.tele.2016.04.009
Terveen L, McDonald DW (2005) Social matching: a framework and research agenda. ACM Trans Comput Hum Inter (TOCHI) 12(3):401–434
Timmermans E, De Caluwé E (2017) Development and validation of the Tinder Motives Scale (TMS). Comput Hum Behav 70:341–350. https://doi.org/10.1016/j.chb.2017.01.028
Toma CL, Hancock JT (2010) Looks and lies: the role of physical attractiveness in online dating self-presentation and deception. Commun Res 37(3):335–351. https://doi.org/10.1177/0093650209356437
Wu P-L, Chiou W-B (2009) More options lead to more searching and worse choices in finding partners for romantic relationships online: an experimental study. CyberPsychol Behav 12(3):315–318
Yang M-L, Chiou W-B (2010) Looking online for the best romantic partner reduces decision quality: the moderating role of choice-making strategies. Cyberpsychol Behav Soc Networking 13(2):207–210
Zytko D, Grandhi SA, Jones Q (2014a) Impression management struggles in online dating. In: Proceedings of the 18th international conference on supporting group work, pp 53–62
Zytko D, Grandhi S, Jones Q (2014b) Impression management and formation in online dating systems. In: European conference on information systems (ECIS) 2014, pp 1–10. Retrieved from http://aisel.aisnet.org/ecis2014/proceedings/track12/9/
Zytko D, Freeman G, Grandhi SA, Herring SC, Jones QG (2015a) Enhancing evaluation of potential dates online through paired collaborative activities. In: Proceedings of the 18th ACM conference on computer supported cooperative work & social computing, pp 1849–1859
Zytko D, Grandhi SA, Jones Q (2015b) Frustrations with pursuing casual encounters through online dating. In: Proceedings of the 33rd annual ACM conference extended abstracts on human factors in computing systems, pp 1935–1940
Zytko D, Grandhi SA, Jones Q (2016) The coaches said…What?: analysis of online dating strategies recommended by dating coaches. In: Proceedings of the 19th international conference on supporting group work (GROUP ’16). ACM, New York, NY, USA, 385–39
Acknowledgements
Some material cited in this chapter (Zytko et al. 2016) is based upon work supported by the National Science Foundation under Grant No. 1422696. Any opinions, findings, and conclusions or recommendations expressed in this material are those of the author(s) and do not necessarily reflect the views of the National Science Foundation.
Author information
Authors and Affiliations
Corresponding author
Editor information
Editors and Affiliations
Rights and permissions
Copyright information
© 2018 Springer International Publishing AG, part of Springer Nature
About this chapter
Cite this chapter
Zytko, D., Grandhi, S., Jones, Q. (2018). The (Un)Enjoyable User Experience of Online Dating Systems. In: Blythe, M., Monk, A. (eds) Funology 2. Human–Computer Interaction Series. Springer, Cham. https://doi.org/10.1007/978-3-319-68213-6_5
Download citation
DOI: https://doi.org/10.1007/978-3-319-68213-6_5
Published:
Publisher Name: Springer, Cham
Print ISBN: 978-3-319-68212-9
Online ISBN: 978-3-319-68213-6
eBook Packages: Computer ScienceComputer Science (R0)